Wellness With Tracey Welsh, General Manager, Red Mountain Resort

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Recently, I had the pleasure of meeting Tracey Welsh, General Manager of Red Mountain Resort, at the ISPA Media Event in Los Angeles.  This is a great event for  writers to talk with  the leaders in wellness travel in a casual and fun environment and to become more familiar with their brand and services.  Since wellness and well-being means different things to different people, I wanted to ask Tracey about her opinions and insights into this hugely growing sector.

In your mind what's the difference, if any, between wellbeing and wellness?   

Truly,  I don’t think there is much of a difference.  When you look at the definition of well-being, it’s the state of being comfortable, healthy and happy….that’s wellness to me! 

What comes immediately to mind when you think of wellness?

Red Mountain defines wellness as the optimal state of physical, social and emotional well-being.  We weave this  thought through all our programming at the resort, combing physical activity, healthy whole foods and the benefits of spa therapies to inspire our guests in their quest to live healthier and happier lives.  The social and emotional well-being portion of wellness are so tied to the physical component, as your physical health and concept of self are intertwined with your happiness.  We are adding more group activities to our resort schedule as I believe the improvements of technology that attempt to connect us, are in many ways disconnecting us from real human-to-human conversations, where you see emotion and feel energy; tough things to transmit through an emoticon. 

At the ISPA Media Event in LA, you talked about your  target demographic being 40-45 females (versus baby boomers) and how this played into moving away from spa and pampering to more adventure and resort in your branding.  Can you expand on that? 

Red Mountain’s overall demographic is 30 – 65++, so we are crossing a few generations, and we help people celebrate milestone birthdays (40, 50, 60 and 70+) as they are looking for a resort to celebrate their good health and strength!  Many guests in our target demographic honor the importance of their health, and already know that by living a healthy lifestyle it allows them to play as hard as they work.  We  offer all the tools if someone needs some help and inspiration to live a little healthier, so you don’t have to be a marathon runner to enjoy what we offer.  Our location inspires guests to get outdoors and enjoy nature, which in turn motivates you to be more mindful of what you eat, how you feel, and try new experiences.  We still offer pampering, and we look at  bodywork, skin care and self-care at it as an important component in a healthy lifestyle.